Welcome toSAUVC 2019Singapore, March 8-11

Autonomous underwater robotics is an exciting challenge in engineering, which participants get to experience at SAUVC. The competition is great learning ground for participants to experience the challenges of AUV system engineering and develop skills in the related fields of mechanical, electrical and software engineering.

Mentorship

Participants will have access to mentors and support. Teams will be assigned liaisons who will be able to provide mentorship and technical guidance as the teams work on designing and building their AUVs. SAUVC emphasises outreach, learning and skill development and we want to ensure everyone learns and grows through the course of SAUVC.

Guest speakers

The competition will also feature workshops and lectures from world renowned experts in the field of marine robotics and autonomous underwater systems to inspire participants with new ideas and techniques to solve challenges and build an interest in careers related to marine robotics.

Get-together

The competition is also about meeting others like us, who are also interested in underwater robotics and autonomous systems, to get to know one another, to share ideas and make connections.

SAUVC 2019 Competitors

SAUVC 2019 Registered Teams

Team ID

Team Name

Institute

Location

Competition

The SAUVC competition challenges participant teams to build an AUV which can perform given tasks. These tasks are simulations of tasks operational AUVs would have to be able to perform. The competition is held in a swimming pool and each team's AUV will have to perform 4 tasks. The speed and accuracy at which the AUV performs tasks will be used to decide the winner of the competition.

Schedule

Speakers

Since 1998, close to 10,000 students have participated in the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition (now called RoboSub) initiated by ONR in collaboration with AUVSI. From a judge’s perspective, some team practices have persisted over the years that are candidates for improvement. These practices will be discussed in the presentation.

Speaker's Bio

Thomas Curtin is Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington. He served as Chief Scientist at NATO Undersea Research Centre in Italy, Program Manager at the US Office of Naval Research, Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, and oceanographer at Fisheries Research Institute, Malaysia.

Roland Bouffanais

Assistant Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design

Swarming technology for pervasive monitoring of the marine environment.

Swarm Robotics offers a promising approach to the pervasive monitoring of marine environments. Traditional monitoring techniques rely on either a single autonomous robot—autonomous surface vehicle—or a fixed network of sensors. Neither existing technology is suitable or efficacious for the robust monitoring and tracking of dynamic environmental features at the surface of aqueous environments. There is a pressing need for small, low-cost and rapidly deployable autonomous buoys.

Speaker's Bio

Roland Bouffanais is an Assistant Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He received his Ph.D. from EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) in computational science for which he received the prestigious IBM Research Prize in Computational Sciences (2008) and the ERCOFTAC Da Vinci Award Silver Medal (2007). He has been a postdoctoral fellow and associate at MIT and still is a research associate with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

Hayato Kondo

Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology

AUV development during the last decade.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles or Underwater Robots have potential to explore and discover underwater resources and also unearth new knowledge about oceans. In the future, they might construct underwater structures, maintain and repair subsea structures, mine and collect mineral resources, and breed fish in open water autonomously. In this talk Prof Hayato would share some stories on AUV development under him during last decade, which were challenging to create new application of AUVs.

Speaker's Bio

Dr. Hayato Kondo is an Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. He received his Master and Bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Waseda University, and the PhD in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from The University of Tokyo. He spent a year at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the U.S.A. as a guest investigator from 2011 to 2012.

William J Kirkwood

Senior Research and Development Engineer at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Competitions, Workshops, Conferences and Membership: How they can advance your Maritime Career?

In today’s world, young engineers have learned to rely on the World Wide Web as a major source for information and exchange between themselves and their colleagues. The Internet is a powerful resource and without a doubt has made the flow of information faster as well as supplanting many of the traditional methods for interaction, interactions that were previously accomplished within the function of a technical society. This said, the Internet has not and cannot entirely replace all of these interactions and is not capable of various other aspects performed by a technical society. This

Speaker's Bio

William (Bill) Kirkwood has been with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) since 1991, and in that time has held many positions, including Director of Engineering. Bill has also developed a number of vehicles and instruments at MBARI including the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Tiburon, the autonomous vehicle class (AUV) Dorado and the deep ocean Raman systems (DORISS) to name a few.

Travel

Getting to Singapore

Singapore is one of Southeast Asia's largest aviation hubs, so unless you're coming from Peninsular Malaysia or Batam/Bintan in Indonesia, the easiest way to enter Singapore is by air. In addition to Singapore Airlines and SilkAir, Singapore is also home to low-cost carriers, Scoot and Jetstar Asia. In addition to the locals, every carrier of any size in Asia offers flights to Singapore, with Air Asia and Firefly operating dense networks from Singapore.

Many nationalities can enter Singapore without a visa. Refer to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority for current guidelines. Entry permit duration depends on nationality and entry point. Most people get 14 or 30 days, although EU, Norwegian, Swiss and US passport holders can get up to 90 days. If you are a registered team and need invitation letters to apply for a Visa to Singapore, please contact your Team Liaison.

Get Around

Getting around Singapore is easy. The public transportation system is extremely easy to use and taxis are reasonably priced. All public transport systems in Singapore use the EZ-link contactless RFID farecard or a Nets Flash Pay card. You can store value on it and use it on trains (MRT) and city buses. The card can be bought at MRT stations can be "topped up" in increments at the farecard vending machines or 7-Eleven stores. Taxis use meters and are reasonably priced and honest. Mobile apps like Uber and Grab are handy in getting Taxis.

Accommodation in Singapore is expensive by South-East Asian standards. Backpackers' hostels can be found primarily in Little India, Chinatown, Bugis, Clarke Quay and the East Coast at about $25-40 for a dorm bed. Some hostels will rent out whole rooms. Alternatively, the entire dorm room (4 or more beds) can be booked. This provides space for equipment. Check out 65hostel, Boxyroom, 9flats for more options.